WEEK ONE – USES OF PHOTOGRAPHY
Unfortunately, during week one I managed to attend the wrong class for a week. From what I have gathered during the first week of uses of photography, we learnt how photography has altered and been altered by society over time. Week ones reading by Joanna Zylinska quotes that “we are not just photographers today: we have also become distributors, archivists and curators of light traces immobilised on photosensitive surfaces. I found this quote to be extremely complex and was interested to dive deeper into the meaning it aimed to convey. This seemed to be a very technical way of describing photography. Looking back over the material of week one it appears there was a technique workshop called go manual. Similarly to week two I assume that this involved going out into the city streets to take the humans of New York style photos and also experience ways to photograph people and places without relying on auto focus and other camera qualities. Aligning with the quote “to live is to be photographed” by Susan Sontag, the screening ‘The Decisive Moment’ (1973) demonstrated how photographs of people doing ordinary activities such as cartwheeling or doing the washing can be very breathtaking. It became clear to me what the comment “photography slows time to a stand still in order to corral and flash freeze information.” (Heiferman, 2012). I found the content for week one very interesting as it began to morph my previous opinions on photography and open up a whole new world of techniques and uses for photographs.
Overall, during week one although I missed class time I found that I was introduced to the different purposes and qualities of photography and the way it can be used to tell stories and capture significant moments in time and history. I am definitely excited to learn more.
Kuc, Kamila, Zylinska, Joanna (2016) Photo Mediations: A reader, Open Humanities, Press.